Services

Expert Instrument Repair & Setups

Expert Instrument Repair

Welcome to BECKS GUITAR SPECIALTY SERVICES, (Beck’s guitars for short).  Since the early 1960’s, I have had a burning desire to play guitar.  In the 70’s, a great playing guitar with easy-non-buzzing action and perfect intonation was hard to find. In fact, at 20 years of age, I owned a Martin D-21, a ’57 maple board Strat, a ’59 GIBSON dot neck, and several other guitars.  The Martin, Strat and the Gibson all had different and great tones and features, but the one thing in common they all had was: a hard to play action and bad intonation (but they looked and sounded kool).  As I hunted the local area, I could find no one who really could answer my basic questions, or successfully adjust my guitars. (I even found one “big name” repair guy…he really screwed-up my dot neck.) What was intonation?  Why did my guitar fret out in the upper register?  Why could I get them in tune in one chord, but when I played another chord, the tuning was way off?  It was from this frustration, I began a lifelong and never ending series of experiments.  I purchased a strobe scope and discovered that many bridges were in the wrong place.  I discovered flat frets reduced the sustain and diminished the tone-intonation.  I began to invent specialty tools to reshape the frets.  I pioneered many specialty fixtures and techniques, designed from scratch, all in my pursuit of having the best playing/tuning guitars. Whether your instrument needs world class refretting, or basic maintenance and a set-up, Beck’s Guitars can handle all aspects of your guitar repair needs – WE GUARANTEE IT!!

  • Set-ups
  • Expert Refretting
  • Fret Leveling and Crowning
  • Bone/Ivory/Graphite/Brass nut fabrication and installation
  • Custom Neck re-shaping
  • Broken Headstocks restoration, (one of our specialties)
  • Acoustic brace repairs, top flattening, bridgeplate repairs
  • Binding repairs
  • Crack Cleating
  • Acoustic Bridge fabrication and re-gluing

These are just some of the thousand of repairs we regularly perform!!!!

PROFESSIONAL GUITAR SET-UPS: THE SECRET OF GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR GUITAR

Have you had your guitar set-up by Beck?  Now that you have purchased that beautiful PRS, that killer Martin, that wild Parker, your precious Fender … Gibson … Taylor … what next? Are you getting all you deserve out of your guitar’s playability and tone? We at Beck’s Guitars know better!! Every day we receive requests like “I bought a new guitar.  Can you make it play better?”.  The answer is YES! All new guitars and bass’s come from the factory poorly adjusted. I can’t overemphasize the importance of having a fine guitar (be it a beginners guitar, a terrible guitar, or quality guitar) set-up, and adjusted, especially if it’s new! We have over 30 years of experience in the fine adjusting and calibrating of quality guitars for all guitar players. Glen Campbell said “Rich sets up and adjusts every single one of my guitars before I go out on stage, and I use about 6 guitars during my show.”  Ray Herndon (Lead guitarist with Lyle Lovett, McBride & the Ride) – “Rich has set-up and dialed in all my guitars.  He’s refretted my stage Strat three times in 10 years, got my Gibson 175 cooking along, and I couldn’t use my acoustic Gibson without his gentle touch.”  Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) – “Beck did so much work on my main stage guitar. He recessed the kahler, installed a Floyd Rose Nut.  He finally made it playable, and I’ve used it 90% of the time over the past 10 years”.  Jesse Johnson’s Gibson (guitarist with PRINCE), done tons of repairs for George Lynch, Michael Schanker, Herb Ellis, Gardner Cole (songwriter with Madona), Glen Campbell, Jessy Valenzuela, Scotty Johnson, Robin Wilson, and every great player has one thing in common:  Every single one of them had a different idea of what good action was.  Glen likes his action super low, you can run the truss-rod almost dead straight.  Jesse Johnson, he plays like king-Kong.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s great, but if I handed him Glen’s strat, he would throw it back at me.  Jesse likes his action real, real, well…HIGH!  Some gies play extra hard, some play extra easy, and some fall somewhere in the middle.  That’s why its always important to have your personal guitar set-up to suit your personal style.

BROKEN HEADSTOCK RESTORATION

Sometimes your guitar will fall off the stand, get knocked over, or dropped, causing a small or massive break anywhere along the neck or headstock!! If that happens —Stop!! DON’T DO ANYTHING TO IT!! Your guitar’s neck or headstock can be fixed perfectly! The guitar is not trash!! Don’t cry or yell. Just bring your precious electric or acoustic to Beck’s Guitars. I have fixed every type of break possible, thousands of times, with prefect success! When our professional repairs have been completed, the look, feel, and sound of your guitar will be as good as new. We use specialized repair techniques to return your broken baby to her previous glory. Your guitar is not trash!! Just handle it carefully, and bring it to Beck.

FULL SERVICE GUITAR ELECTRONICS

Often a weak link in your sound signal chain can be your guitar’s electronics. If your electric guitar doesn’t work right when you plug it in, this can be a simple repair of the jack, or other parts, like the switch or volume/tone controls. Our expert electronics tech, Gerhart Schleifer, can repair any electronics problem your guitar may have. He can also add new pickups, switches, push/pull pots, phase switches; he can professionally install any type of upgrade of electronics or rewiring needed to make your guitar work perfectly when plugged in! Having up-graded quality pots and switches in you guitar will always make a great sound difference. If you’re trying to secure all the quality sound of which your guitar is capable, then installing better electronics along with the Beck Super Set-Up is what you need. We guarantee a better sounding guitar!